mid-S7: The Bad
May. 4th, 2010 06:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snick_backupI should point out that I didn't really distinguish between which elements I considered poor artistic decisions and which I just don't like. That said...
- The Potentials. Gah, the Potentials! There are several I like a lot as individuals - specifically Amanda and Vi, with a place of honor for poor comic-relief Chao-Ahn - but as a story element they drive me up the wall. I'm an introvert, okay? And the idea of twenty or thirty girls invading my house makes me positively claustrophobic.
- The First. The First on so many levels. I hate it metaphysically. I hate it as a piece of worldbuilding. I hate how it operates (which indicates a certain amount of effectiveness on its part, which I grudgingly grant). The Bringers are silly and arbitrary and the Ubvervamps look suspiciously like that "Grr. Argh" fellow.
- The high school. Again, feeling a little claustrophobic here.
- General Buffy. She's trying so hard and she's failing so bad, and meanwhile she's boring. It's the same stuff over and over, the same speeches and arguments and pushing. At least in scenes with Spike she's showing some complexity.
- Giles. I'm not saying there aren't explanations for his actions, explanations that would take precious little fanwanking, but that doesn't mean I like how he's undercutting Buffy's authority and criticizing her for operating pretty much as she always has. Which brings us to...
- Lies My Parents Told Me. Don't get me wrong, it's got lots of interesting stuff in it, but a lot of it's just wonky. Buffy would kill Dawn now to save the world? That's the big lesson she's learned in the last season and a half? When did I miss that bit of character development?
And what's all this junk about "the mission"? More General Buffyness, or something else just plain out of left field?
And how is Spike's big weight-of-truth epiphany the fact that his mother as a vampire was actually just a demon? He of all people knows that it's never just a demon; his own actions in the same flashback make it crystal clear.
- The Spike-torture in Bring on the Night and Showtime. Gah, it feels like those episodes go on forever. And not in a good way.
- Doom! It's the apocalypse to end all apocalypses!
Wait...
We're told over and over that this is it, this is the big one, we're really fighting for our lives this time - like, what, all those other apocalypses didn't count? Like the world wouldn't have been just as destroyed if we hadn't defeated Glory, or the Master, or the Sisterhood of Jhe? Like this evil somehow calls for different tactics and more severe measures than all the other times when life, the universe, and everything was at stake?
It's a bad case of Tell, Not Show, and the show's using it to justify all sorts of character behavior that I do not want! Now suddenly we take ourselves seriously? What's that all about it?
- The Potentials. Gah, the Potentials! There are several I like a lot as individuals - specifically Amanda and Vi, with a place of honor for poor comic-relief Chao-Ahn - but as a story element they drive me up the wall. I'm an introvert, okay? And the idea of twenty or thirty girls invading my house makes me positively claustrophobic.
- The First. The First on so many levels. I hate it metaphysically. I hate it as a piece of worldbuilding. I hate how it operates (which indicates a certain amount of effectiveness on its part, which I grudgingly grant). The Bringers are silly and arbitrary and the Ubvervamps look suspiciously like that "Grr. Argh" fellow.
- The high school. Again, feeling a little claustrophobic here.
- General Buffy. She's trying so hard and she's failing so bad, and meanwhile she's boring. It's the same stuff over and over, the same speeches and arguments and pushing. At least in scenes with Spike she's showing some complexity.
- Giles. I'm not saying there aren't explanations for his actions, explanations that would take precious little fanwanking, but that doesn't mean I like how he's undercutting Buffy's authority and criticizing her for operating pretty much as she always has. Which brings us to...
- Lies My Parents Told Me. Don't get me wrong, it's got lots of interesting stuff in it, but a lot of it's just wonky. Buffy would kill Dawn now to save the world? That's the big lesson she's learned in the last season and a half? When did I miss that bit of character development?
And what's all this junk about "the mission"? More General Buffyness, or something else just plain out of left field?
And how is Spike's big weight-of-truth epiphany the fact that his mother as a vampire was actually just a demon? He of all people knows that it's never just a demon; his own actions in the same flashback make it crystal clear.
- The Spike-torture in Bring on the Night and Showtime. Gah, it feels like those episodes go on forever. And not in a good way.
- Doom! It's the apocalypse to end all apocalypses!
Wait...
We're told over and over that this is it, this is the big one, we're really fighting for our lives this time - like, what, all those other apocalypses didn't count? Like the world wouldn't have been just as destroyed if we hadn't defeated Glory, or the Master, or the Sisterhood of Jhe? Like this evil somehow calls for different tactics and more severe measures than all the other times when life, the universe, and everything was at stake?
It's a bad case of Tell, Not Show, and the show's using it to justify all sorts of character behavior that I do not want! Now suddenly we take ourselves seriously? What's that all about it?
